


'85

by indecisivebehaviors



Series: Can't fight this feeling [7]
Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, So much angst, there are no graphic descriptions here but KK3 is discussed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29569710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indecisivebehaviors/pseuds/indecisivebehaviors
Summary: Johnny deserves to know what happened in '85.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Series: Can't fight this feeling [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200365
Comments: 12
Kudos: 93





	'85

**Author's Note:**

> eeeyy welcome back to more angst! this is set almost immediately after 'toy soldiers'. I could probably put a T rating on this but we're going M to be safe.

It’s midnight, long after dinner and the kids had been bribed into going to bed, when Daniel finally decides he’s ready to talk about it.

The room is dark, the only light coming in from the porch lamp outside, and he’s tucked himself into Johnny’s side when he asks, “How much do you know about the tournament in ‘85?”

Johnny startles underneath him, “‘85?” He pauses and Daniel can tell he’s trying to think back, “...not a whole lot honestly. After... what happened, I didn’t want to touch karate with a 10-foot pole, nevermind thinking about tournaments. I know you won that year, but that’s only ‘cause I saw the trophy in the dojo. That’s about it.”

He huffs out a humorless laugh, “Yeah I won. Didn’t really feel like it but I guess the trophy says otherwise.”

Johnny’s hand comes up to card lightly through the hair at the back of his neck and he sinks further into the hold, “What do you mean?”

His throat feels dry when he starts to explain, “Mr. Miyagi and I had just gotten back from Okinawa, before everything happened. God, that trip was just... it was this whole different world. Sometimes I don’t even believe that everything that happened there,  _ really _ actually happened. I’ll have to sit down and tell you about that someday too.”

“Whenever you’re ready.” And Johnny just sounds so sincere, it knocks the air from his chest.

“Thank you,” He says, his throat tight with the emotion he tries to shove down, just for now. He needs to get through this, and he  _ won’t _ if he doesn’t do it now, “When we got back, originally, I was supposed to go to college. My mom had saved up, and it was a pretty decent amount for the time. But that wasn’t what I wanted to do. He’d told me once, about a dream he’d had as a younger man, about wanting to open a bonsai shop, and I thought, hey I have the money, I can do that for him. So instead of enrolling in classes, I spent almost a week looking at buildings to lease. When I finally found one, I signed the lease the same day and brought it back to show him,” he chokes up a little at the memory, “You should’ve seen him. I’d never seen him look so happy.”

“I can imagine.” He sounds almost fond, and Daniel thinks, not for the first time, what would have happened if Mr. Miyagi had still been alive if things would have been different.

“We opened almost immediately, ordered a bunch of trees, and we had a neighbor across the street who worked at a pottery shop. Her work was so great, honestly, she did all of the little designs by hand, they were so beautiful. She was a really nice girl... I wish she’d never met me,” Johnny’s hand stills for a second, but he doesn’t say anything, and he goes on, “I got a letter from the tournament committee not long after that, they were inviting me back to “defend my title”. I’d wanted to at first, I’d thought it would be fun. But Mr. Miyagi didn’t like the idea of tournaments, he always thought karate was meant to be used in self defense, instead of for a prize. I respected that and burned the application.”

“But you  _ won _ in ‘85?” Confusion colors his voice.

“Yeah...” He tries to collect himself, “Not long after that, I got a visit from a boy named Mike Barnes. He was feral almost, the way he talked about the tournament. Said he wanted to take my title, but he wanted to take it from  _ me. _ It wasn’t enough for him to win he had to beat me. When I told him I wasn’t gonna fight, he freaked out. His friend, or at least I think his friend, was the one who drug him out of the shop the first time. The next day, we got a visit from Terry Silver,” He lets out a shaky breath, “I should’ve known. It’s all so clear to me now what was happening but I couldn’t see it then. Silver said he’d come to apologize, that’d he’d trained under the same man as Kreese, that they’d fought in Vietnam together, that Kreese had changed, was  _ sorry _ for what happened that year, and had wanted to come say it himself. Then he told us that just the week before, he’d buried him,” he feels Johnny tense underneath him, and he can guess why, “It’s why I didn’t believe you, when you said you thought he was dead. It wasn’t the first time someone had lied about it.”

“I... I didn’t know-” But Daniel is quick to cut him off.

“I know you didn’t Johnny,” he pushes to sit up just enough to look at him, blue eyes still bright even in the low light, “I know that now, but I didn’t know then. I didn’t want to believe you’d lied to me, but I didn’t know what else to believe then.”

He can see how wet his eyes are, “I’m so sorry.” He brushes a hand over his cheek, and he leans into the warmth for a minute.

“After... after Silver, Barnes kept showing up- at the shop, at the dojo. His threats got worse the closer the tournament got, he trashed the store, stole from us, hurt me and Jessica... then he cornered me alone in the yard, training. I really thought he was gonna beat me within an inch of my life. But then Silver was there, and forcing him to leave, telling never to come back. I don’t even remember why’d he’d been there in the first place. When he asked if I was gonna fight him, I told him that Mr. Miyagi didn’t want me to fight in the tournament,  _ wouldn’t  _ train me for it, and he- he offered to train me himself. At first, I refused, but then everything just got worse. Barnes tried to drop Jessica and me off an  _ actual _ cliff at one point. When Mr. Miyagi still refused to teach me, I just got so angry. He didn’t understand why I thought I needed to do it. It wasn’t to defend my title or get some stupid trophy. He’d threatened my life, my friend, everything I’d been trying to build. I needed to prove to Barnes, to  _ me _ , that he couldn’t just do that to me and get away with it. So I went to Silver and asked him if he’d still train me.”

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feels Johnny wiping the tears off his face, worry clear on his face, and he tries to give him a too watery smile, “I’m okay. It’s just... I’ve never talked about this before. Mr. Miyagi knew some of it, the parts he was there for, but I’ve never told anyone...  _ everything _ . I didn’t think I could for a really long time.”

“We can stop if you need to.” And just  _ god _ this man. When he leans forward the kiss is chaste, even as he tries to pour all of his emotions out through it. He pulls back after a second, leaning his forehead against Johnny’s collarbone.

“I need to do this, you need to know,” He takes a deep breath, and starts again, “Silver’s training was brutal. Some parts of it felt like actual torture. It got into my head pretty quickly. I was so angry all the time when I was training with him. I did... a lot of things I’m not proud of. He’d insisted I learn what he called ‘The Quicksilver Method’, had a saying for it too just-” He’s surprised when Johnny flinches at the mention of it, “Johnny?”

“Jesus fucking christ...” He watches him clench his eyes shut tight, taking in a deep shaky breath, “Kreese used to... used to drill this mantra into our heads during training. If a man can’t stand, he can’t fight. If a man can’t breathe, he can’t fight. If a man can’t see, he can’t fight. That’s what he called it.”

When Johnny reopens his eyes, can see the question burning behind them, Daniel can only smile sadly at him and nod, “Yeah. That was it.”

“Daniel...”

“No,” He shushes him gently, “Not yet. You  _ need  _ to know everything.” When Johnny nods, he continues, “Like I said, I made a lot of bad choices during that time. When I realized what was happening to me, that all of it, was turning me into someone I didn’t recognize anymore, bitter and angry at everyone, I knew I needed to stop. I talked to Mr. Miyagi, and he talked me out of the tournament again. I went to go tell Silver, I figured I owed him that much, but when I got there and told him I wasn’t going to compete he just... started laughing. I’ll never get that laugh out of my head. Then Kreese was there, like some kind of ghost, and Barnes, and it was only then that everything clicked. It was a trap, they’d been working together the whole time. I didn’t know what to do, I was so confused and scared, and when Barnes rushed at me, there was nothing I could do. I ran the first opportunity I got. I ran, and ended up running straight into Mr. Miyagi.” 

He huffs out a small laugh, “Honestly if I hadn’t been so terrified, I would’ve thought it was really cool. He’d followed me to the dojo to make sure I was okay- I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t been there. Barnes had chased me out and then Mr. Miyagi just effortlessly tossed him back through the doors of the dojo,” Johnny’s eyes widen in surprise, “Obviously when he went in there to confront them, Kreese had wanted a fight, but he basically just wiped the floor with both him and Silver in minutes. It was honestly pretty incredible. And then Kreese was still challenging me to the tournament, saying that it’d never be over unless I fought. So Mr. Miyagi agreed, right there, to train me,” he swipes at his own eyes, “I thought I was ready, but when I saw Barnes fighting it was just... terrifying. He was ruthless with every opponent, I don’t think he ever lost a point. I thought about backing out, but I knew I couldn’t; it’d never be over if I didn’t. When I got up to the mat though, it was different. I didn’t score a single point for a very long time. Barnes could have won easily in the first 2 minutes if he’d wanted to. But it was like this sick game to him. Every time he’d score a point he’d immediately do something to lose it, over and over again. Just so he could drag it out longer. For a minute I actually thought he was going to kill me-” His voice cracks, “I was so scared. I was bleeding and crying and everything hurt so much, and I screamed at Mr. Miyagi to just make it stop, that I wanted to forfeit, that I was afraid. Y’know what he said to me?  _ Daniel-san, it okay to lose to opponent, must not lose to fear. _ So I got up- because he told me to and I just... kept fighting. I don’t even remember how I beat him, it was all a blur. When it was over, it didn’t feel like it had before. It wasn’t a victory, I was just surviving. I’ve spent 30 years looking over my shoulder, waiting for him to come back.”

He lets the silence hang in the air for a long time, before he chokes out, “I need you to understand why I never wanted Cobra Kai to come back. It wasn’t about you and me... I just didn’t want anything that had happened- to both of us, to ever happen to any other kid. God, Johnny, I just... we were  _ kids _ and we both did a lot of stupid things that we can’t take back, but we still kids and neither of us deserved that.  _ Our kids _ don’t deserve that, we can’t-” his voice cracks, and he doesn’t fight it when Johnny pulls him back down into his hold. He speaks against the skin of his neck, tries not to think about the ring of bruises that had only just started to fade, “We can’t let them stay in the valley, Johnny. We can’t lose.”

He feels him take in a long, deep breath before he says, quiet even in the silence, but with more conviction than he’s ever heard.

“We won’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> no beta here folks!


End file.
